Anyone who leads an upright life and experiences real difficulty and disappointment and yet is not crushed by them is worth more than one for whom everything has always been plain sailing and who has known nothing but relative prosperity.

Whoever lives sincerely and encounters much trouble and disappointment, but is not bowed down by them, is worth more than one who has always sailed before the wind and has only known relative prosperity.

Whenever we meet disappointment and sickness and trouble, my boy, let us thank Him for having brought us this hour, and let us not forget meekness, for it is written: 'On this man will I look, even on him who is poor and sorrowful and who trembleth at My word.

According to Theo, he is definitely making a name for himself. But we are under no illusions, and are only too grateful that he is having some slight success. You don't know what a hard life he has had, and who can say what is still in store for him. His disappointments have often made him fell bitter and have turned him into an unusual person.

When God supports us, illness is no misfortune, especially when we get new ideas and new intentions in those days of illness that would not have come to us if what not been ill, and when we achieve clearer faith and stronger trust in God.

You must not go there in too anemic or enervated a condition, if you set a value on coming out of it stronger. I do not consider it a great misfortune for you to be obliged to be a soldier, but rather as a very serious trial from which you will emerge - if you emerge at all - a very great artist.

Anyone who leads an upright life and experiences real difficulty and disappointment and yet is not crushed by them is worth more than one for whom everything has always been plain sailing and who has known nothing but relative prosperity"_Page.52

And the pilgrim goes on sorrowful yet always rejoicing - sorrowful because it is so far off and the road so long. Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow and he thinks of two old sayings that he heard long ago - the one is: "Much strife must be striven Much suffering must be suffered Much prayer must be prayed And then the end will be peace.

Personally I believe that the adversities one meets with in the ordinary course of life do us as much good as harm. The very complaint that makes one ill today, overwhelming one with discouragement, that same thing - once the disease has passed off - gives us the energy to get up and to want to be completely recovered tomorrow.

You can not gain peace by avoiding life.

I always liked to chase the girls. Parkinson's stops all that. Now I might have a chance to go to heaven.

The testing process usually happens when we least expect it, thereby catching you off guard and giving you no chance to display anything by your real personality.